Is there any free way to permanently hide system icons (such as the wireless icon) in the notification area? Supposedly this can be done with Customize Notifications, but it doesn't stick on my machine.

I'm pretty sure that Windows hides icons based on their associated text. If the text changes, Windows considers it to be a new icon with a different hide/show configuration. Which is ridiculous.
–
wfaulkOct 16 '09 at 2:07

3 Answers
3

The problem is that certain apps don't provide a title for the system tray icons. Windows doesn't have a way of recognizing them if they don't have a title, so it doesn't remember the option to always hide. That's why certain icons just can't remember to stay hidden.

TraySaver alleviated these problems by
letting you stash away unneeded tray
icons in a hideable separate tray, and
by restoring the icons after an
Explorer crash. It also added an
option to the system menu of any
application that let you minimize it
to the tray.